Maelstrom
by MonPetitLoupDeMort
Summary: Two people, two reasons, one storm. Just because love can’t happen doesn’t mean it won’t. Oneshot. Has now been edited and reposted.


No, I am not dead, nor is my Golden Sun fascination.

This is my first shot at Golden Sun romance.

(Cowers in fear)

On with the show…

_Edit: Thanks to all who reviewed. I've revamped and edited this, especialy in light of gnome leader's review. There is minor tweaks thoughout, and heavier editing as you get to the end. Storyline remains the same. Concrit is alway apreciated, on any of my stories._

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Frigid wind and rain lash against feeble jacket bindings. Definitely not enough to keep out the damp, but that doesn't matter. Not even close to enough to keep out the chill.

Why else be out here than to be soaked to the skin?

Why else be out here than to be lashed by gusts?

A shivering Jupiter adept clung high up in a tall pine tree, damp all the way through and thourougly depressed. An exhausted Mercury adept sat beneath that same tree, chilled to the bone and sorrowed just as much.

This is as close as I'll ever get to him anyway, Sheba thought despondently, relishing the hasrh chill of the soaking rain. She was blissfully unaware that the object of her thoughts was mere feet away, straight down. Being the practical sort of girl she was, Sheba knew that there was not any sort of use in depression over things unalterable. But that tiny little nagging voice in the back of her mind would not stop taunting her mercilessly about her just not wanting to take a risk. It said that she could change the situation any time she wanted to, that she was just afraid. Except that she wasn't.

Except that she really was.

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Having heard jokes by fellow Lemurians about ancient myths of immortal gods falling in love with mortals, never with happy endings, Piers reflected. He had been among the jesters once, those making silly on another's problems, and now felt what it was to be on the other end of the story. Never dreaming that he would have left his homelands, much less become traveling companions with people of the outside world, he had never prepared for the possibility.

Love.

Complex in its simplicity, pure and real and true. He had not ever imagined himself with a Lemurian wife; all girls that he had known had been too… apathetic? Easy-going? Complacent? None of the words he could think of quite described what he felt, but language was an inaccurate tool at best. Especially when dealing with feelings. He had been totally caught off guard when the maelstrom of life had thrown him such a curve.

Love.

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She tried to remember if she had smiled like this before. Definately not the same sort of smile she wore now, a foolish, foolhardy, daring smile, slightly off-kilter. She leaned as far out into the wild wind and wetness as she could. Before she got kidnapped, she only ever grinned in grim satisfaction or toleration of ignorance. Now she felt like she could take on the world, and win. Not that she wanted that much anyway.

Deep in her thoughts, it took her just a moment too long to notice that she could no longer feel her fingers. A sudden, violent gust of wind accompanied by piercing raindrops tore her grip from the tree and sent her into an ignoble slide down the length of the tree, picking up speed as she went.

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Thump.

Or, as it more properly sounded, Shlump-splat!

Looking over at the tangled mess of robes that interrupted his reverie, Piers recognized them as the jumbled garb of their resident Jupiter Adept.

"Do you have some sort of thing with falling?" He felt it only fair that he get to make a few glib remarks after the whole age fandango.

"Ohhh…" Sheba's soft moan did nothing to conceal her pain. Falling from the top of the tallest tree within miles was no light thing. Not that she needed help or anything. It didn't seem like anything was broken. Nothing but her pride anyway.

Noticing the dismay that Sheba seemed to be in, Piers carefully straightened out her robes and laid her out flat on the ground. A quick 'Excuse me.' was the only prelude to his swift check of her body for serious injury. Nothing phenomenal. A few moments and a soft blue glow later, Sheba was able to sit up with relatively little pain.

"Where did you land?" His genuine concern was not so much appreciated. Amiguous questions happened to be a pet peeve of hers.

A glare. Some rephrasing was in order.

"How did you land?" She found it a strange thing that his voice would hold a hopeful tinge.

"On my knee, I think." Piers wondered if Sheba was in a good mood, to grace him with a response after only two questions. He sighed.

"That will be trouble." Sheba could feel his apprehension and… fear? For her? Somewhat unsure that her interpretation of his intonation was correct because of the calm control behind it, always behind it, she refrained from comment. Instead she found something different to focus on.

"Maybe I won't be able to walk so well for a few days, but surely this sort of injury couldn't be seriously dangerous." With evident perplexion, she moved to raise herself to her feet. His chilled hand halted her before she even got halfway and brought her gently back down.

"Such it would seem. But there is a lubrication fluid in the joint of the knee that is quite deadly. Were something of this injury to rupture its containment, and release it into your bloodstream, you could die before anyone even knew what the matter was. Rest, if you would." She was vaguely disappointed that he remained formal down to the very last detail. Like always. She didn't want this to be like always. But it always was. Catching herself with such depressing and cyclically cliché thoughts, Sheba was almost ashamed.

Always is always like always, except when it changes.

Right, back to the regular, pragmatically practical 'ol gal she was. Again that nagging voice came. How could she expect him to ever change how he was if she never allowed herself to change?

Ignoring it, she pushed her self to her feet and leaned against the tree awhile, trying to catch her breath. The fall had winded her more than she liked to admit. Piers watched her with an expression that seemed to be half comprised of amusement and half of worry. She took an immediate dislike to the partial grin that he miserably failed to disguise. When she judged that she was ready, Sheba pushed off of the tree to walk back to the inn. The first step on her left leg shot an intense bolt of pain straight up her spine, and it crumpled under her.

Her decent to the ground, however, was halted gently when Piers caught her and carefully stood her back up. Anyone else would have laid her back down there and then, and refused to move her an inch further without a healer and a stretcher. But Piers knew how bad it must be for Sheba to have even one person seeing her helpless. To bring even more and make a public spectacle would be too much of a shaming humiliation.

Piers always seemed to know these sorts of things instinctively, and acted on them with such natural grace that there seemed no other way he could have done things. But Sheba already knew that, it was part of why she fell for him in the first place. He knew when she needed space and she knew when he needed teasing.

She tweaked his nose softly. "You're getting wet."

"I'm a Mercury adept. I'll live." He looked funny, cross-eyed and staring at her finger, still on his nose.

"You're getting me wet." She took her finger off his nose, feeling foolish, and used a slightly stronger tone this time.

"Then let's move. Under the tree again?" He could just feel the sacasm building up for the next response, but there was nothing he could do now.

"No, over the tree. That'll sure keep us dry." Sheba couldn't manage a strong glare at that moment, so she closed her eyes and simply felt the rain coming down on her.

Us. There, she had said it. It sounded nice. She thought that Piers probably didn't even notice that she referred to them as a whole rather than as a you and a me, especially in the middle of her sarcasm. And she liked saying it on top of that.

Sheba and Piers hobbled back towards the tree, Piers acting in the stead Sheba's useless left leg. They moved in such natural rhythm that she was almost disappointed when they reached their destination. But then Piers flashed her one of his 'charmingly-unaware-that-I'm-so-charming' looks, and she practically melted. Or the melting could have had something to do with the fact that she tried to start walking with her left leg again.

Either way, it ended with Sheba reclining on the ground against the tree while Piers stripped off her left boot so he could bandage and possibly splint her leg.

"Could you grind up some herbs for me to place in your bandage?" Piers asked. It was amazing how infuriating mere politeness could be. Sheba wrinkled her nose in distaste, but did as instructed anyway. She wasn't the healer here. When finished, she offered him the slimy concoction with a grimace.

"Thanks."

Wait… Was that a contraction? Did he know that he slipped from the formal language he couched everything in? Most importantly, did he do it on purpose?

Piers noticed Sheba staring at him funny. Actually, staring at all for Sheba was strange. It was a nice change from her regular aloofness. Maybe he should 'slip up' like that more often.

"I haven't grown an extra head, have I?" Pier's attempt to lighten the mood fell flat on its face, but at least it brought Sheba back to reality. She glared at him half-heartedly before looking away, up into the tree.

"No, Piers the Lost One, you haven't."

"I'm glad, Sheba Child of the Gods."

It was a silly thing, to use titles. But maybe the point was being silly. Once formal pretences get dropped, that's when real communication begins. Or not.

"I like you." Sheba said, still staring upward.

"Who, the tree?" This can't happen, Piers thought. He earned himself a harder glare.

"That wasn't so easy to say, you know. You. I like you, Piers the Lost One." She brought her gaze back down, but now it rested on her legs, laying between the large, tumbling roots of the tree.

"I can't… like you." Those weren't the words he wanted to say, but his logical mind prevailed.

Her eyes snapped up, straight into his. "Can't, won't or don't?"

"I can't… you're going to grow old… die…" His voice faltered, as his gaze shifted to avoid hers.

"So will you, now. Unless you, your uncle and King Hydros start up a smuggling racket with Lemurian spring water." Where she got these things from, she didn't know.

"What would we hide it in? Wine bottles?" The sheer rediculousness of the statement made him look at her in bemusement.

"I always knew you were a closet drunkard." A soft chuckle accomanied her words.

"I always knew you were too shrewd an arguer." Not the best comeback in the world, he knew.

"You do or you don't like me. It's simple." Well, even if she didn't quite agree with that statement, it sounded better.

He dropped the bemused look, still staring at her. "And if I don't tell you?" Something unidenifiable was straining behind the cool calm of his voice.

"Then I'll bug you about your age until you're twice as old as you are now. And by bug I mean pester you during your every waking moment and most of your sleep too." She would have grinned manniacly, had this not been such a serous conversation. She wasn't sure if either of them really knew what they were talking about.

"Such high stakes…" He was stalling for time, and she knew it.

"Your answer please…" And she would not stand for it.

There was a moment of silence. Neither heard the wind or the rain about them. Out of the blue, he spoke.

"Yes." She perked up a bit.

"Yes, you'll tell me?"

Sheba pulled herself to standing, leaning against the tree.

"No." He hadn't a clue what he was doing, but he knew it was something right. Or at least he hoped so.

Sheba hung tightly to the tree, barely daring to breathe. "Then 'yes' what?"

"Yes, I like you, Sheba, Child of the Gods, who fell from the sky. Yes, I want to… grow old with you. Yes, I may love you."

He looked at her, and she could see the truth in his words, amidst the slight fear and hesitation that she herslf could not claim to not possess.

"I might just love you back, Piers the No Longer Lost One."

He smiled, she smiled. So lost were they in each other's eyes, that they took unconscious steps toward each other. They were almost close enough to kiss when Sheba put too much weight on her left leg. Again. Down she went, but there was Piers, catching her, holding her back up again.

"Drat! Stupid injury…" She muttered darkly. She had been so close.

Piers almost smiled as she shifted to better lean on him for the long walk home. The long, wet walk home. It was strange to him, to think of the inns that they stayed at now as home, rather than his land of birth. Oh well, wherever he was with his friends was home.

"No kisses for you until you get better." This teasing thing was fun. No wonder Sheba and Jenna seemed to have an endless stream of things to bother about. But this felt more intimate somehow.

"When I get back, I'm going straight to bed. Wake me when I'm better?"

"Of course, Sleeping Beauty." Piers grinned and Sheba blushed. She liked the sound of this.

They hobbled home in silence, the wind whistling softly around them, the rain gently falling on them.

Both of them were thinking of the storm today that brought them together. They knew that it takes both wind and water to make a good storm.

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There you go, something undepressing.

(Hides from flames)

_Edit:Thanks be to those who told me to fear not the flames, and as of yet I havn't gotten one. Much thanks to those who came back, and to those who are new._

_No longer in fear,_

-Kit


End file.
